WWE Legend and AEW star Matt Hardy revealed that disgraced WWE Chairman Vince McMahon didn’t know who Bullet Club, the legendary New Japan faction, were after seeing their T-Shirts in the crowd in WWE.
The Bullet Club were founded by Prince Devitt (Finn Balor in WWE) in New Japan Pro Wrestling, as the top heel faction in the company. Adding stars later on like Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and more, the group became one of the biggest stables since the NWO in WCW.
Vince McMahon is famous for not watching any media outside of WWE and has no knowledge of outside of his own creation. However, according to WWE legend Matt Hardy, Vince McMahon took an interest in Bullet Club after seeing Bullet Club shirts all around the arena during WWE shows.
On “The Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy,” Matt Hardy revealed that once he had the Bullet Club explained to him, Vince McMahon wanted to sign the group, saying “I want them all!”
“When this Bullet Club phenomenon was happening, and they were selling all this merch, I mean, obviously, it was on Vince’s radar. There was one point where Vince said, ‘All these shirts, they keep showing up at our shows, these Bullet Club shirts, who are these people? Who are these people? Where are they from?’ ‘It’s this real hot act. They’re from New Japan; sometimes they come over and do Ring of Honor stuff,’ and Vince said, ‘I want them. I want them all.’”… He got a lot of the Bullet Club, but he didn’t get them all.”
Vince McMahon did manage to sign some of the Bullet Club (AJ Styles, Finn Balor, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows) but the whole set eluded him. Adam Page turned down the WWE in 2018, as did The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega too.
The Bullet splintered off into The Elite who were the driving force behind the founding of AEW, WWE’s biggest competitor. Vince McMahon had signed Bullet Club to WWE, maybe AEW would never have been founded and he would have no competition for his company.